1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to analytic services and more specifically to climate-specific analyses for the Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) dataset.
2. Introduction
The Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) is a climate reanalysis dataset of great value to society. MERRA integrates data from a variety of satellite systems with numerical models to produce a temporally and spatially consistent synthesis of climate variables that are not easily observed. MERRA provides global coverage. The MERRA dataset covers the modern era of remotely sensed data, from 1979 to the present. The breadth of MERRA variables, which include atmosphere, ocean, and land surface products, makes MERRA ideal for investigating climate variability and for use in an expanding array of applications areas, such as national disasters, civil engineering, ecological forecasting, health and air quality, water resources, and agriculture, for example.
Currently, end users, climate researchers, or members of the public have only limited access to MERRA data. Current technologies are deficient because the MERRA dataset is too large to be moved from the archives where it is stored to end users where the data can be more easily analyzed and used. What is needed is an improved approach for easier access to MERRA data for data analyses from where the data are stored before moving reduced, more usable products to the end user for further study.